Feeling: Bored. Really, really bored. Unfortunately it was a gorgeous day and it would have been a perfect morning run. Thanks to my shin, I didn’t get to enjoy it.

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Weekend catch-up posts are probably going to become a trend for me for the next little while. May has been a really busy month for me, and it’s already looking like it will continue into June. Not that I’m complaining though, as the weather gets nicer, the desire to spend time outdoors increases dramatically.

Aaaanyway, for any of you who were curious to know what I ended up doing with that gorgeous half avocado, I’ve went the dessert route and came up with….

… Secret Ingredient Raw Chocolatey Macaroons!

I made them as part of my sister’s birthday present (and I delivered them to her over lunch in a trifle bowl that I bought for her as well – also part of her birthday present. I had heard that avocado was an easy substitute for butter in baking recipes and had originally planned to use it to bake a cake or brownies. But I was craving macaroons like it was nobody’s business and I’m always looking for easy, no-fuss recipes for delicious treats. Using some of my knowledge from delicious breakfast cookies and overnight oatmeals, I thought it would be rather easy to come up with these macaroons. The best part about these? They’re perfectly portable for eating on-the-go, and oh yeah, incredibly healthy!

Secret Ingredient Raw Chocolatey Macaroons(vegan-friendly!)

Ingredients:

1/4 c brown sugar

1/4 c toasted carob powder

1/2 avocado, mashed

1/4 soy milk

1/2 c unsweetened shredded coconut

1.5 c rolled oats

1 tbsp honey (or vegan-friendly substitute)

Directions:

1. Mix everything together until well incorporated.

2. Using a tablespoon measure (or just estimate), form small macaroons and refrigerate overnight until firmed.

3. Enjoy as is, or roll in more coconut the next day. You could also add melted chocolate if you want!

Enjoy with friends and impress them when you reveal that they are made with avocados instead of butter!

For lunch, I met with my sister and some friends at one of my favourite restaurants, Camros Organic Eatery. I love going there because their menu changes daily, and they show all the ingredients in everything they make so there are no surprises. Their persian-inspired food is organic, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, and most importantly, delicious.

I had a beet and carrot salad, with a cauliflower coconut stew, and (my absolutel *favourite*) a brown basmati rice ball. Their rice balls change each day as well, but this one was a savoury one filled with zucchini, I believe. Every time I bring someone there, I insist that they try a rice ball and they’re never disappointed. Unfortunately, they’re only open business hours, so they’re closed weekends and holidays. If you happen to have a day off and are in the Yonge/Bloor area in Toronto, you must check this restaurant out! They also have a few other locations too in other parts of Toronto too!

Afternoon snacks:

Green grapes

Parmesan & Sundried Tomato Brown Rice Crisps

After work, I headed back to my parent’s place to have a birthday dinner with my sister. My mom made steamed baby bok choy with seared scallops.

She also bought some duck and tofu from a chinese restaurant. I didn’t have any of the duck but I heard it was really tasty. 🙂

My plate: brown rice, scallops, baby bok choy, and tofu. I ended up going back for another scallop, veg, and tofu.

After dinner, my sister and I met with some friends and we ended up seeing Ironman 2. I hadn’t actually seen the first Ironman, so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to follow along but that wasn’t the case. Not bad! I also ate many handfuls of movie theatre popcorn (with no extra butter or seasonings, thanks!).

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Saturday Re-cap

I spent the night at my parent’s place because we had a special day planned for my sister. I decided to turn off my alarm and wake up “whenever”, which turned into whenever my cat decided it was time for me to wake up. 🙂 Since it was already 10am and I knew we’d likely be eating lunch soon, I had a light breakfast: a piece of Stonemill Bakery flaxseed toast with crunchy peanut butter, guava jam, flaxseed meal, and plain 2% yogurt. I have no idea what possessed me to throw the yogurt in, but there was a giant tub of Liberte plain yogurt in the fridge (my favourite) and I knew yogurt and oats would be too filling, so I decided to give it a try on toast. It was.. interesting, to say the least. But tasty enough that I’d probably do it again. New and accidental discoveries are the best!

For lunch, I raided my parent’s fridge and threw together whatever I found. I started by “steaming” some broccoli, using this method. The only thing I changed is the amount of time I left the broccoli cooking – 3.5 minutes instead of 5. The broccoli came out perfect and it had a bit of crunch still. What a difference adding in ginger beforehand makes, too.

The first plate had broccoli, tomato, some chicken that my mom had made with Sriracha, and bean sprouts that my mom had also made. All delicious.

And this last minute open-faced sandwich was so fresh and incredible. I found some whole wheat naan in the fridge so I heated up half of it, spread some mashed avocado over it, sliced tomato and drizzled balsamic vinegar to finish it off. So, so, so delicious.

For dessert, I had half a small papaya. I love fresh fruit!

After lunch, we drove over to Niagara on the lake for our high tea appointment at the Prince of Wales Hotel. The last time I was there was when my sister took me out to celebrate successfully passing my Master’s degree defense. Side story: when my sister told the waitress that we were celebrating my graduation, she asked me what grade I had just graduated! 😉

The tea room is so pleasant and delightful.

We were seated on a couch with two seats and our table was a gorgeous chest covered with a table cloth. We spent almost two hours having tea and eating sandwiches, scones, and desserts. It was such a pleasant afternoon!

I ordered a Chai spiced herbal tea. It was so good, I easily finished the entire pot.

Each tray came with their famous in-house scones, various desserts (including a heavenly lemon meringue tart), and four types of sandwiches:

Smoked salmon on rye bread with carraway seeds

Ham and swiss sandwich with an apricot jam

Egg salad sandwich

Cucumber and goat cheese pinwheels

The scones were incredible. I really tried to show some restraint but it was a lost cause as soon as I took my first bite. It had a gorgeous crust on the outside and the inside was perfectly fluffy, creamy, and buttery. They served it with Devonshire cream, butter, and strawberry jam – I put all three on my scone. I ate all but 1/4 of it. Just looking at the picture is making me want to go back right now and have another one.

I made a pretty serious dent in the sandwiches, but I only nibbled on the desserts because I was super full by that point.

After we finished, we drove to an outlet mall and did some shopping. There may have been a super sale happening at Coach and we may have spent over an hour in there. I won’t lie, we walked out with a lot of goodies. It was a successful trip, for sure.

On our way home, we stopped by a Chinese restaurant in Mississauga and ordered some noodles and congee for dinner. It was comforting and tasty.

When we got home, I made overnight oats for me and my family. The ingredients were basically the same for both: rolled oats, banana, 2% plain Liberte yogurt, cow’s 2% milk, dried blueberries, cinnamon (I doubled the cinnamon in mine), and dried apricots. Since the blueberries were so successful, I decided that it wouldn’t hurt to throw in some apricots as well. Boy am I glad I did, because it was as yummy as I thought it’d be the next day!

The big bowl was for me, and the little yellow one was for my family. Just kidding! 😉

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Sunday Re-cap

Did anyone actually make it this far? If so, thank you for your persistence!

This morning I woke up and slowly prepared myself for 20k LSD equivalent workout that I had planned for this morning. I have really tried to stay positive and focused on the bigger picture with this leg injury, but it’s easy to lose perspective when you’re faced in the last few weeks of training and you’re supposed to do a 20k LSD run. It didn’t help that it was absolutely gorgeous outside and I would have loved to run outside today. But when a quick 2 second sprint inside my house sent shooting pains through my shin, I was reminded of why I had to keep my fitness level up in another way.

I started off with a bowl of overnight oats, topped with flaxseed meal and crunchypeanut butter.

The night before, I purchased my first audio book. I waffled between a few books to buy, but I finally settled on Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. The audio book is well over 2 hours (I think it’s 11 in total), so I knew that I’d at least have something interesting to listen to. While I did enjoy the book, the workout itself was as boring as I feared it would be. I made a few discoveries:

There is a 60 minute limit on the machine – I timed my entire workout on my iphone and I’m glad I did since the elliptical reset mid-workout and I had to stop and start fresh halfway through.

I’ve been spoiled with towel service at downtown gyms (towel service is included in my membership which I get at a discounted fee through work) – the lady at the front looked at me like I was a spoiled brat when I innocently asked her where I could pick up a towel

After 45 minutes, I had no shame and rolled my tank top up because I was sweating like a man

The certainty that I’ve lost fitness since taking a break from running has turned into a slightly paralyzing fear that I won’t be able to get through the upcoming half in two weeks.

I really, really hope that I never have to do that again

When I got home, I was positively ravenous.

I prepared more “steamed” broccoli, drizzled it with balsamic vinegar and ate it with a piece of cranberry and pumpkin Stonemill Bakery toast, 1/2 mashed avocado, and a sunny side up egg fried in butter (mmmmmmm).

I don’t know why I bothered separating the toast, avocado and egg when they obviously taste so much better together.

I also munched on a few Mary’s Organic rice crackers with leftover avocado that didn’t fit on my toast.

My appetite was out of control today! I met with a friend where we explored The Big Carrot while I sipped on an iced coffee with milk and purchased lots of goodies.

Among them were some organic (sulfur-free!) apricots, figs, and a rice crisp carob bar. I also picked up some peanut butter Puffins cereal, Mary’s sticks and twigs, Ezekiel 4:9 english muffins and tortillas.

I also snacked on an apple, and sampled almost every item I bought earlier. Yep, I was so impatient that I started opening things and trying things on the subway ride back to my apartment. 😀

For dinner, I made two types of parsnip fries: dill and onion, and sweet chili. Both were delicious – and MSG-free!

For the dill and onion parsnip fries, I mixed olive oil, dill, turmeric powder, onion powder, and sea salt. I used a sweet chili spice mix and added some sea salt and olive oil as well for the sweet chili parsnip fries. I baked them uncovered in a 400° pre-heated oven for half an hour. They were perfect.

I also decided to finally give into my pizza craving and threw together mushrooms, cooked zucchini, sauteed spinach with garlic, and tomato paste on an Ezekiel 4:9 tortilla. I heated that in the oven at 350º for 15 minutes.

While I was waiting for the pizza to heat through, I pan-fried some bbq’d vegetarian beef skewers to have on the side.

I hope the picture below makes you as hungry as it makes me. This pizza didn’t disappoint. And unlike delivery pizza, I didn’t feel gross after I ate it.

On the side, I ate all of those parsnip fries. I originally intended to only eat a portion of each, but they were dangerously addictive. I can’t decide which flavour I liked more!

After dinner, I enjoyed a glass of ginger tea (also purchased today from The Big Carrot) which *almost* tasted as good as my regular peppermint, ginger, and fennel seed tea which I’m currently out of it at the moment, green grapes, and one tamari and seaweed brown rice cake.

Is it normal to be this hungry after an elliptical workout? Granted, I used that machine for more than 2 hours, but I still didn’t feel like I worked myself as hard as I normally do when I run.